You think roaches coming out of the sewer are a problem? For the past 10 years, small white rats have been swimming their way up into toilets in the Blenman-Elm Neighborhood, just east of the University of Arizona.

Rats gnaw up through the dryer exhaust and wind up -- bloody and plenty bowed -- in your fresh laundry.

Don't mention mice to a Mauian. You have to scrape the leavings off your storage and Christmas decorations. The first time I fetched them out of the attic I thought it was just red dust. Gaaaaaaahhhhh!

i have a cousin who lives in that town. they tell me that the little, and some not so little, critters are everywhere and they dont know what to do to get rid of them. i recomended a shotgun, but that is not practical

Quote:

Originally Posted by rosa who else

Rats gnaw up through the dryer exhaust and wind up -- bloody and plenty bowed -- in your fresh laundry.

Don't mention mice to a Mauian. You have to scrape the leavings off your storage and Christmas decorations. The first time I fetched them out of the attic I thought it was just red dust. Gaaaaaaahhhhh!

My sister-in-law had a sewer rat come up in her toilet one time. She called her father-in-law, and he got it out for her. Then I asked her what would keep one from popping up while she was actually sitting on the potty and what would it do if that happened. She freaked out. So did I, for that matter. It was a long time after that before either one of us was comfortable "sitting on the throne."

My sister-in-law had a sewer rat come up in her toilet one time. She called her father-in-law, and he got it out for her. Then I asked her what would keep one from popping up while she was actually sitting on the potty and what would it do if that happened. She freaked out. So did I, for that matter. It was a long time after that before either one of us was comfortable "sitting on the throne."

I read some similar urban legend awhile ago, and I have gotten into the habit of looking into the toliet before I sit now. However, I live in Arizona (tho not the place mentioned) and I have never seen a rat here.

That wasn't an urban legend. My sister-in-law did have a sewer rat in her toilet. That was about twenty years ago and hasn't happened again. I had one die under my house, probably fifteen years ago. Yecch! Thank goodness there have been no more.

My housemate tells me that he read an article in some important scientific journal a few years back where the writer completely dismissed claims of rats swimming up pipes and coming out of toilets. My housemate sent him a video file of a rat doing exactly that and the poor writer was fairly embarrassed.

David Attenborough tells an awesome story of one time when he was in India and a sewer rat did climb up into the bowl while he was sitting on it. Unfortunately for the poor rat, David had a rather upset stomach that day and he covered the rat in diarrhea. The first David knew about it was when the diarrhea-covered rat jumped out from between his legs and ran away!

Rats used to get into a house I stayed in in Bristol. We couldn't figure it out. When the owner had removations done, he found a bricked up toilet room behind the kitchen (it was a sort of dead space in a house that had been modified several times and he didn't know it was there). The toilet was dried out and rats got into a cracked drain (confirmed by a drain doctor who cleared a blockage) and up into the toilet, then through the walls into his house.

I think rats coming up through dried out toilets featured in Life of Grime (TV documentary series) in the UK.

David Attenborough tells an awesome story of one time when he was in India and a sewer rat did climb up into the bowl while he was sitting on it. Unfortunately for the poor rat, David had a rather upset stomach that day and he covered the rat in diarrhea. The first David knew about it was when the diarrhea-covered rat jumped out from between his legs and ran away!

Yes, this is not an urban ledgend. A couple of years ago there was an article in the Boston Globe about several instances of rats getting into houses through toilets, mostly in the Fort Hill neighborhood of Boston. If I remember correctly, they seemed to be getting in through the vent stacks.

A few years ago my friend in Berkeley told me she went into the bathroom to find one of her cats hanging on to the sides of the toilet seat, for dear life, with his back legs, with his front claws stuck into a rat in the toilet. I was too freaked out to pay much attention at that point, because I've been up there staying with them several times. I kept thinking of sitting on the throne when a rat emerges. I know there was something done to keep it from happening again, but what that was I couldn't say.

Seriously, though, what's to stop them from popping up while someone's sitting there?

Seriously, though, what's to stop them from popping up while someone's sitting there?

The point at which the household waste pipe enters the main sewer should be equipped with a flap valve - it opens outwards into the sewer to let wastewater out, but not in the other direction, so Mr Rat can't get in. Sadly of course, a lot of city sewers are in desperate need of repair, and a broken flap valve is not uncommon.

crawl through or under any opening higher or wider than 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) (Fig 3);

climb the outside of vertical pipes and conduits up to 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter; climb the outside of larger pipes attached to buildings by bracing themselves between the wall and the pipe; climb the inside of vertical pipes, wall voids, or earthquake safety seams and joints between 1 1/2 and 4 inches (3.8 and 10.2 cm) in diameter;

jump from a flat surface up to 36 inches (91 cm) vertically and as far as 48 inches horizontally;

drop 50 feet (15 m) without being seriously injured;

burrow straight down into the ground for at least 36 inches (91 cm);

reach as high or wide as 13 inches (33 cm);

swim as far as 1/2 mile (800 m) in open water, dive through water traps in plumbing, and travel in sewer lines against a substantial water current. In areas where high rat populations exist, it is common for both roof rats and Norway rats to enter buildings through toilets and uncovered drains.

I used to work for the municipal government in a small city in Ohio (not the one where I currently live). There was a neighborhood in the town that should never have been built: it was very low-lying and flooded all the time. It probably used to be a swamp. Rats were a problem there. According to my co-workers, one day, before I came to work there, a woman who lived in that neighborhood had showed up at the city hall with a dead rat in a jar -- she'd found it in her toilet.

My friend Sue saw a unicorn in her toilet (bathroom if you prefer), in her first floor maisonette. There was also a leak. Turned out when I took the toilet apart the little bugger had gnawed through the PVC what-je-ma-callit that connects the outlet of the toilet bowl to the waste pipe, rather than tackle the S bend and entered the house that way. Quite impressive, must have taken him hours if not days.

She swears to this day it was not a unicorn, but in fact a rat. I don't know whether I should believe her. However I did not actually see the unicorn-rat, it had buggered off before I went to fix her toilet.

In seriousness there is nothing other than a rat that could have done that damage. I know that fitting was previously new and undamaged since I had installed it six months earlier, and no-one had touched it since. What else scrapes away at a 5mm thick PVC pipe from the inside, leaving 3mm wide gouge marks?